


Below the Sun

by DCKIM



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: 1st person pov, Agender Sole Survivor - Freeform, Art, CW at the top of every chapter, F/F, F/M, Guardian-Ward Relationship, I fix the canon, M/M, Other, Psyker Sole Survivor, Slow Burn, Young Sole Survivor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-10-26 01:59:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17736866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DCKIM/pseuds/DCKIM
Summary: The kid’s dirty, with smudges of soot and blood on his face, drowning in a flannel shirt two sizes too big... A tiny PipBoy, just a bit bigger than a pocket watch, sits on his uninjured arm, his left arm, and an adult’s sniper rifle is strapped to his back.“Detective Valentine?” His voice is high and clear, like a note of music. “Ellie Perkins sent me to get you.”------or: 14 year-old sosu gets thrown into the Commonwealth and Nick Valentine (and quite frankly, everyone else) has a soft spot for this kid that tries so hard.and later, much later, he falls in love with nick.UPDATED 9/15/19: Chapter 5 - We finally get some damn explanation for why Natty is the way he is.





	1. (Nick Valentine): They Call Me Neil

**Author's Note:**

> CW: nothing too bad, aside from the regular canon stuff. blood and a bit of light gore

 

8:47 PM, December 1st, 2287

 

Immediately after Dino exits stage-right from behind the bullet-proof glass, I hear that odd mechanical click of a silenced gun. The ol’ processor categorizes the sound as one I’ve heard before: sniper rifle, silenced, very close. Sure enough, the bullet whizzes past the window almost too fast for my optics to register.

The low thump of a body hitting the ground, the too-quiet footsteps drawing closer, the clicking of familiar claws on a hard floor. They’re limping, if the off-beat rhythm of their steps say anything.

“So,” I say, hoping my voice is loud enough to carry through these steel walls, “is it a hero that comes to rescue this old synth from his tower?” The footsteps stop. “If so, he'd need to hack the terminal to open this door. I’d hack it myself but, unfortunately, it seems to be on the other side of the wall. Got maybe seven minutes until someone notices that Dino isn’t taking a bathroom break.”

Nothing happens for a moment. Then comes the faint typing of keys. I can't help my muted sigh of relief. Hopefully, it won’t be long now, and I fish a cigarette out of the pack in my pocket and tip my hat back to get a better look. Three weeks of playing nothing but solitaire can make a bot lose a bit of hope. When the doors smoothly slide open, it takes me a minute to register what I’m seeing. The lit cigarette drops from my fingers.

To his credit, the kid doesn’t even bat an eye when he meets my glowing gaze and tattered neck panels. He’s dirty, with smudges of soot and blood on his face, drowning in a flannel shirt two sizes too big. Four ink-blue lines are drawn down his chin from the bottom of his mouth. My diagnostics ping his fractured arm and leg, as well as the fresh blood dripping from a cut somewhere beyond his hairline. A tiny PipBoy, just a bit bigger than a pocket watch, sits on his uninjured arm, his left arm, and an adult’s sniper rifle is strapped to his back. He sways, even while holding the door frame for support.

“Detective Valentine?” His voice is high and clear, like a note of music, weaving through the stale air. “Ellie Perkins sent me to get you.”

For a second, I don't know what to say.

“Holy hell, kid, what happened to you?” I ask, striding forward. But before I can get any closer, a familiar wolf-mutt twists out from behind him, bigger than any feral mongrel, any mutant hound, snarling a vicious warning and standing between us with its hackles bristling. “Dogmeat!” I back up instantly, raising my arms, palms open. “Is that you?”

“That’s not her name," the kid corrects sharply, his face pale. “It’s Nova.” He winds his hand into the ridge of fur standing up on her back, reaching up to do so. “ _Anax̂_ , it’s okay. He’s the detective.” The last syllable of the unfamiliar word wells up and catches in the back of his throat like a soft cough; the language he calls her with isn’t one that's tossed around in the Wealth anymore. The wolf-mutt lowers her lips over white fangs, still suspiciously wedged in front of the boy.

“What’s your name, kid? You got any stimpacks you can use?” I step forward again, slowly this time, nudging aside Nova carefully. She takes a moment to snuffle into the side pocket of my coat, the one that holds my cigarettes, and sneezes. Only then does she move aside fully, letting me kneel to get a better look at his broken arm. Does she remember me, from all that time ago? There is a beat of silence as the boy’s eyes dart to the small pack tied to Nova’s side.

“My name’s Nathaniel Snow. You can call me Neil. I think I have one.” He grinds his teeth when I probe his fracture with my good hand, but doesn't shout or cry, “I don’t really — I don’t really like needles. I can’t — it's hard to do it myself.”

He’s got two broken bones and a head injury but can’t stand a needle prick? He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood when he sees my expression.

“Nothing wrong with that,” I amend hastily before he can pull his arm away. “I'm not particularly starry-eyed for them, either. Why don’t you let me apply the syringe? You won’t have to look at it, then.” Another pause.

“Okay,” he agrees. “There’s one in _Anax̂_ 's backpack.” At the sound of the name he calls her, Nova’s ears perk up, and she trots closer to me, offering access to the pack looped crudely behind her shoulders with a strip of torn cloth. I don't scratch between her ears; I've learned the hard way that she doesn't take kindly to that.

"Is that a nickname you call her by, Neil?" I say casually while rummaging around the small pack. There isn't much inside: a small water bottle, a dull stone, a roll of compression bandage, and a strange disk, all padded by several different pieces of fabric. But the stimpack he promised is there. "Doesn't take a detective to guess it's not English you're speaking."

"It's Unangam Tunuu. Aleut. Dad speaks it to me sometimes. If I've been good." He resolutely turns his head away as I empty half the syringe into his arm and the other half into his leg, as close to the breaks as possible. Luckily, both are cleanly broken, and they set without much problem. I pretend I don't see him take shaking breaths at a count of four while I slowly massage the healing areas. He pauses his counting and adds as a quiet afterthought, "It’s a warm language, I think."

"You’d know more than me," I agree. "What's it translate to in English?"

He doesn't answer and instead, carefully bends his arm and leg, his face relaxing just a fraction. On closer inspection, I find that the surface of his left hand is covered in horizontal lines and small geometric symbols, all the same color as the lines on his chin. The end of the symbols disappear underneath the PipBoy. When he stops flexing his fingers, I pull out a handkerchief from the pocket of my trousers and fold it into a makeshift gauze to press to his unruly black hair. He takes it from me, pressing obediently. Nova sniffs it and licks some of the blood off his temple.

"Alright, Neil, one stimpack won't give you a full recovery, but it'll give you something to stand on while we bust our way outta here. Do you think you can run?"

He tries. Oh, God, he does. But it’s only three steps until his bad leg falters, sending Nova diving beneath him to break his fall. He scrambles back up, biting his lip again, eyes furious and frustrated and embarrassed, while Nova mouths his weakened leg, her ears pressed flat against her head.

“Sorry, Detective Valentine. I can try again.”

“I don’t think that’s anything to apologize for. Here, grab my lapels.” I lean down and he does so, his fingers hesitant and questioning, his head brushing up against the brim of my hat. He’s a small wisp of a thing, barely level with the top of my stomach panel if he stands on his tiptoes. “There we go,” I encourage.

He lets out a short sound of surprise when I pick him up with my undamaged arm, steadying him with my metal hand. His grip tightens on my coat. The long braid of his hair is tucked inside his shirt. He smells like razorgrain and sweat. Like cooking meat, like blood, like Nova. Like mutfruit flowers.

“As far as I’m concerned, you did an excellent job getting in here just to rescue a banged-up synth. Least I can do is get us out. I know it ain’t a dream to hold a guy like me, but it’ll have to do for now. Got a weapon besides that intimidating rifle of yours?”

He reaches behind him to unholster a 10mm and hands it to me. From the pocket of his shorts come a box of rounds, which he slips into my chest pocket.

“ _Anax̂_ , can you go ahead? Same as always.”

Nova briefly touches her nose to his leg, checking one more time, then turns to bolt out of the room, much quieter than something her size should be.

“I’m leaving my back to you, kid. Let me know if you see anything. We’re gonna try to be an unstoppable two-man unit.”

“‘Kay,” he responds softly, putting his chin on my shoulder to watch behind me.

“You know how to reload this thing, right?”

“Yes.” There’s a hard edge to his voice this time.

“Alright, kid. Let’s go.”

I take off quietly, stopping often to listen for signs of other people, checking around blind corners. It doesn’t seem I have to, though. We round a corner to find blood splattered across the wall and a Triggerman with his throat torn out, sprawled on the ground, his gun still holstered neatly at his side. His breath stops gurgling through his lungs when I discharge the gun, once, between his rolled-back eyes.

“Why did you do that?” he asks. 

“Do what?”

“Kill him. He was dead anyway. You wasted a bullet.” His eyes are wide and unblinking. Focused on mine. I can see the neon reflection of my gaze in that warm sepia color.

“Don’t really consider mercy to be a waste.”

“Okay.”

We move on.

“I’ll remember that,” I think I hear him say into my shoulder. 

Three flights of stairs later, which is three more flights of stairs than this damned vault should have, Nova waits for us, her dappled, grey-tan muzzle dripping blood.

“ _Anaadax̂_ ,” Neil whispers, the affection curling in his voice like steam off a fresh pot of coffee. She gives a single swish of her tail and looks to the door at the end of the darkened hallway.

There are three Triggermen with their guns drawn, fanned out and alert. Guess they decided Dino wasn’t dumb enough to get lost in the vault a second time.

“Mr. Valentine, can you get the one that’s second closest to us?” Even though his voice is barely audible, it somehow cuts through the background conversation of the guards and shuddering of the overhead fluorescents, the words crystal clear inside my ear.

“Yes, but someone will hear the gun go off.”

“We’ll have to work with it,” he whispers and wiggles out of my arms onto the ground. In one fluid motion, he skims into the darker shadows just before the door and assembles his rifle and tripod on the floor. “ _Anax̂_ will go when she hears the rifle. Try to go when she goes, Detective.” Before I can say anything, he puts an eye to his scope and then stills into a lifeless doll, into furniture. There is no tremor in his hands.

 

There’s that click. The Triggerman furthest from us falls in a limp heap. The one closest to us doesn’t get to turn his head before Nova leaps into him, silent except for the clack of her nails and the crunching of his cervical vertebrae between her teeth. Between the two, I’m the loudest one, stepping forward, out from the shadows and the safety of the door, and shooting the Triggerman, twice in the chest. Somehow, he still stands, lets out a small shout, and pulls up his gun. Another bullet to the knee, which drops him. Nova overtakes him like a ghost before I can put the final bullet in his brain. His pistol clatters to the ground.

“Nice shot, kid,” I breathe out when Neil limps up to me. He shakes his head while I lift him back up with an arm, his rifle already on his back.

“‘M not good at more than one shot, or if I miss. You looked like you knew what you’re doing, Detective Valentine.”

“Just practice,” I say. _Something I wish you’ll never need_ , I don’t say. Nova is already moving forward. “Hey, kid. How old are you?”

For some reason, he thinks on that question. He doesn’t respond until we reach another door with a terminal.

“Fourteen,” he says, and whatever heart I would have had sinks past the chemical incinerator in my stomach and into my feet. I don’t say anything more as he watches me hack the terminal with Nova sniffing a spot of blood on my sleeve. 

Her ears go up, and she snaps her vision to the door. Neil reacts almost immediately and reaches over to still my hand. His hands are a light brown against my sharp metal. Nova listens a second longer and whooshes through her nose, looking up at Neil.

“They’re waiting for us. How many?” he asks under his breath. She sighs. “Well, probably outnumbered. _Anax̂_ doesn’t really care about counting them out. She says it’s cowardly.” They must’ve heard the gunshots.

“High chance Skinny Malone is waiting out there to get the jump on us. Let me do the talking, and I’ll try to see if I can break us out of here without more blood on Nova, alright?”

“Wait,” he says. Clumsily, he reloads the chamber of the 10mm and hands it back to me. “In case.” I take it from him, and hit the enter key on the terminal.

“There he is!” Darla shrieks as we walk through the door. “I told ya we shoulda rubbed him out when we got the chance, Skinny!”

Skinny doesn’t say anything, just stares at Neil with a cigarette between loose lips. Can’t exactly blame him.

“What the hell, Valentine?!” he finally explodes, dropping his cigarette to the ground and crushing it underfoot. He snatches the cigarette out of the mouth of one of the goons behind him and similarly stamps it out. “Where’d ya find a damn kid in here?!”

“It wasn’t me that did the finding this time, Skinny. Kid said Ellie sent him to get me. Guess I’m three weeks late for dinner. Now, how ‘bout you lemme out so I can get him another stimpack?”

“Hold up, Valentine! This ain’t the old neighborhood anymore. You can’t just walk in here and kill my men with that crazy devil-wolf next to ya and expect to waltz back to Diamond City!”

Nova looks uninterested at the insult, and stares fixedly at Neil, watching for what he’ll do.

“I know you’re a crook, Skinny, but you ain’t a child killer. Just let us pass and we’ll get out of your hair.”

“I never took you for such a spineless man, Skinny Malone!” Darla shrills at the sight of his hesitant face. “Ma always said I could do better than you! I shoulda believed her! Don’t think that for a second—”

“What’s that like?”

Darla falls silent at Neil’s interruption and whirls to face him.

“Whaddya say?!”

“Fighting with your mom. What’s that like?” His voice carries like a thread, but the look on his face is nothing but intently curious. The two Triggermen in the back exchange silent glances.

“Oh, God, Malone,” Darla drops her metal bat on the floor with a clang to cover her face with both her hands. “What am I even doing here? I should be home with my Ma and Pa!”

“Darla,” Skinny says, drawing closer to her, “Whaddya mean, toots? Ain’t ya having a grand ol’ time here?” He wraps a meaty arm around her shoulders, his brows drawing together in concern. The two Triggermen in the back share another look, completely bewildered now.

“It just ain’t the same as home, Skinny!” she declares passionately. “Maybe this life ain’t right for me.”

“Aww, sugar, we’ll work it out! Ya just need some settling in!”

“I’d really like to get the kid back before his bedtime, if that’s alright with ya,” I cut in.

“Fuck you, Valentine! I’ll give ya ten seconds to scram before I gun ya down like the dick you are!” Skinny waves us away angrily before turning back to Darla, his hands on her shoulders.

 

10:59 PM, December 1st, 2287

Outside, the stars have come out, and it's just cold enough to make out the faint puff of Neil's breath in the flickering of the entrance light. My internal sensors start changing again. _This is the temperature_ , they say. _This is the radiation. This is Nova's booming heartbeat. These are his vitals._ From another pocket in his shorts, he takes out a small Mentats tin and pops it open before I can protest. Inside is a red paste that he dips his finger in and uses to draw a circle with an intersecting cross on the door frame of the entrance, as if making his own Railsigns. He uses his thumbprint to dot the center, and doesn’t explain at all. 

 

I put him down carefully, letting him get his good leg under him, and then take off my trench coat to drape around his shoulders.

"Here, put your arms through the sleeves."

He makes a small sound of dissent, putting the tin back in his pocket while licking the red off his thumb. 

"Don't need it, Detective Valentine. I got on two layers."

And he does. He has a shirt under his flannel jacket, and leggings under his shorts, but they're both pitifully thin. Nova braces her feet and then shakes herself hard enough to send some fur flying into the air.

"First of all, no more 'Detective Valentine'. 'Nick' suits me to a T. And second," here, I crouch down so I can put his arms through the sleeves. He lets me, but with a slight frown scrunching up his nose, "We got an hour-long walk to Diamond City, and I run on the warmer side. Tends to happen when you have a battery burning inside ya."

"Why?"

I tie up his belt and make sure the excess is tucked in before lifting him up again. The end of the coat pools past his feet. He goes up easy this time, grabbing my shoulder, and part of me wants to cry at that light human touch.

"Why what, kid?"

"Why do you have a battery inside you?"

"I'm flattered you haven't noticed, but I'm a synth. Synthetic human. Got all the parts, plus or minus a few blood cells and gears."

"So you're not a human?"

"No. Not flesh-and-blood, like you’re thinking."

He goes silent at this, thinking, so I start to move. Nova trots ahead like a silent ghost.

"That's good," he says finally, softly. I raise an eyebrow at this judgment, but don't say anything else. "She didn't answer my question, that woman. Darla."

"No, she didn't. Quite rude of her, actually."

When he smiles, his clean, white teeth glint in the starlight, and his eyes turn into happy half-moons, making his dark circles less noticeable. His lips are chapped, maybe from dehydration.

"You didn't answer my question, either," I try, my voice light.

"Which one?"

"The word you use to call Nova. What does it mean in English?"

" _Anax̂_ ," he supplies and then goes silent. We're almost half-way to Diamond City when he answers. "It means 'mother'."

 


	2. (Nathaniel Snow): But You Can Call Me Nat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: remembered pre-war racism, First Nations slur, needles, mentioned child death
> 
> It's nick's day! happy valentine's day! so here's chapter 2 to celebrate

 

 

 

Night-time, December 1st, 2287

The woman, Ellie Perkins, drops a whole stack of papers when Nick carries me into his office. She did the same when I walked in with Anax̂ before, scattering manila folders across the floor and letting out a single yelp. The floor is cleaner than it was then; her progress of closing down the Agency is going well. But then, Nick and I walk through the door, and everything she's holding goes crashing down as she flies forward, incredulous. 

Anax̂ is there to stop her, twisting in to intercept, snarling to let the woman know that she should be careful, that violent thoughts are the only things that move so quickly. Ellie Perkins freezes, trembling, but her face is less frightened than before.

"Anax̂, s'okay," I say, sliding out of Nick's arm and limping to the nearest chair, holding up his long jacket so I don’t trip. "Sorry, Ms. Perkins. Anax̂ is just worried." I draw her muzzle into my hands and press my forehead against hers. Close my eyes and sway side-to-side. Her flicker of a tongue licks my bitten lips, and it stings. "Anaadax̂," I croon, and she buries her head fully into my arms, a low rumbling starting in her chest. "Anaadax̂." 

"Didn't expect to see you here, Ellie," I hear Nick say. "Thought Thursday was girls’ night with you and Piper." I open my eyes to see her furiously wipe her tears away with the faded pink scarf around her neck.

"Nick Valentine!" she finally hisses, and moves to grab Nick’s arm. If Nick sees the fleeting hesitation and discomfort that flashes across her face at the sight of his shining, metal hand, he doesn’t say, and only smiles sheepishly when she resolutely curls her fingers around his wrist. "As if I could go gallivanting around with you kidnapped by Malone’s thugs! Or strung up and left for dead! Honestly, Nick, at least take _someone_ next time!”

"Sure, sure," he says easily, holding up his free hand in surrender. Anax̂ shakes herself free from my hug and busily starts to check if this is a safe place to be stopping for so long, if she can trust this metal-smoke-static man and his paper-cotton-hubflower assistant. 

_Ellie Perkins,_ I said to Anax̂ earlier when we met the woman for the first time, _Nick Valentine_. Anax̂ had sneezed dismissively and nudged me forward, out of the alley and into the sunlight. 

Nick walks around the desk next to me and opens a rattling drawer while Ellie Perkins crouches in front of me, slowly this time. 

“Did you save Nick all by yourself?” she asks softly, eyes darting over my face. What is she seeing when she looks at me like that? Is it the dried splotches of blood near my temple? Is it my wild hair? My tattoos? Does she look at me like Mrs. Maggie looked at me when I walked to school with my brown hand in my father’s darker ones? I would look up to see those peaceful eyes and wide back, with a black waterfall of hair that he kept neatly in a braid with the feathers of a tigilgaadax̂ tied to the end. We stood out like two maples among a sea of birch, holding hands desperately. 

“Anax̂ did most of the work, Ms. Perkins,” I mumble, looking away from her. I feel like throwing up. 

“Kid’s a damn good shot,” Nick cuts in, taking her place as he kneels in front of me with a stimpack. “Might’ve been stuck there for months without his help.” I can’t help the little hiccup that comes out of my throat when I see the needle. The stretch of arm that my PipBoy is drilled into aches with a bone-deep, phantom pain. 

“Just ‘Ellie’ is fine, Blue,” she says, making me turn away from the needle. I can feel Nick pause at the name she calls me, his fingers tightening their grip around my arm by just a fraction. She rummages in a cabinet for a bit before coming back with a cloth and a box of water. Taking my jaw in her hand, she firmly wipes away the dirt and blood on my face. The water is cold. I barely feel the prick of the needle in my arm, and then my leg. When she lets me open my eyes again, she is smiling. 

“Thank you, Ellie,” I say. 

 

Nighter-time, December 2nd (Or is it still the same day?), 2287

Later, she shoos me up the wooden stairs into her bed, insisting she only uses it when work keeps her overnight. Anax̂ follows me up and only lets me sit down when she has sniffed out every corner of the cramped loft. I carefully comb her all over for ticks, quarter-sized monstrosities that sometimes have wings, and lean up to kiss her squarely on the nose when I can’t find any. She huffs at this human affection, amused, and then climbs up into the creaking bed next to me, her head facing the stairs and her tail draped over my neck like a warm blanket. Like this, I am pressed against the wall, shielded from view by her body. Like this, I should feel safe. 

Ellie’s whispered voice floats up with the warm air. 

“Nick, I _swear_  I didn’t ask him to rescue you,” her words waver as she fights to keep her voice low. “I just told him where I thought you were going, but I never would have thought—”

“I know you didn’t set him up to it,” Nick responds, placating. “Never took you for the type that would send a kid into harm's way.” 

I can imagine her wiping away tears again with that scarf. 

“Nick, you’ve been gone, so you might've not heard, but there’ve been rumors of some kid that came out of Vault 111. People are saying he helped prop up a settlement over in Sanctuary, with Preston Garvey,” Ellie whispers. Nick responds too quietly for me to hear. "It's just gossip, for now. You know how Carla is, but it's pretty hard to miss the dog. I started a file on it, if you want. Blake Abernathy even said the kid got Mary’s locket back. Started calling him ‘Bulle—”

I pull the blankets silently over my head so I can't hear anymore. The sudden shift has Anax̂ huffing a breath and laying her heavy throat over my feet. I try to remember the feeling of putting my head in Granny Murphy’s hubflower-smelling lap while she strokes my hair, patiently telling me stories about this new world. I’d climb trees to find squirrel nests because she’d said they were her favorite once. 

_Don’t need anything special, kid,_ she’d called out, watching as I climbed fifteen, twenty feet into the air, urging me to come down, _Corn and tato stew just as good as gold, nowadays_. Anax̂ had stood next to her, disapproving, wondering why I insisted on being so close to the sky when I wasn’t even a bird. But Granny liked them, so I would get them for her. 

It was always Marcy who chased me up those trees to bring me back down again, always harsh words and harsher glares as she scolded me for not using a rope, for risking my life for such a stupid thing, for not getting Preston to _just shoot the damn nest down_. Then carefully guiding my foot onto sturdy branches, as if I needed help, as if I hadn’t been climbing trees before I could walk. 

I hear the door close behind Ellie, and clanking as Nick locks it behind her. I hear him sit down in his chair. I hear paper rustling, and then silence. Anax̂ is dozing already, a talent she says I should learn. 

And maybe I should try, but maybe I’m just more interested in remembering night-time drives with my father, listening to him humming an old, old song he knew the words for, but wouldn’t sing for fear of Mr. Wright from next door asking if it was _some Injun war-cry_ again. 

“Can’t sleep?” Nick calls out, and I nearly jump out of my skin. He chuckles, “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“How’d you know I was awake?” 

“I can read your vitals from this distance. Feels like your heart hasn’t slowed down since you got here.” He opens a drawer and then closes it. “Wanna come down? We can talk ‘til you’re sleepy, if that’ll help.” When I get up, Anax̂ steps off the bed with a long-suffering sigh and pads down the stairs, where Nick is waiting with a blanket on his arm. She settles in front of the front door, closing her eyes again, but her ears are still alert. 

At the bottom of the stairs, I reach out for him, and he tracks my hand with a wary gaze until it catches on the crook of his elbow. He gives me a kind smile, but doesn’t touch me back. He feels warm. 

“Do you think... you could sit next to me? Just until I fall asleep?” I ask. Like Preston does? Like Jun does, after telling me the fairy tales his mother would murmur into his ear? _There’s one with 孙悟空, the great Monkey King, and his ferocious battle with a Deathclaw as big as a mountain. Ever heard that one, Lune?_

Nick’s smile gentles and he gestures to the bed under the stairs. 

“Sure, kid. Doesn’t seem like a tall order.” 

I crawl onto the inside corner of the bed after shucking off my boots, and once I’m settled, he tucks the blanket around me, before sitting down by the headboard. The mattress dips with his weight and I grasp at his pants until his legs are stretched out next to mine, one ankle crossed on the other. 

“Ellie said you’re looking for your brother.”

“Yeah.” 

I can’t stop looking at him. The material on his neck and jaws is broken, and the clean circuitry that he hides in his body gleams like a jewel. Some parts of his skin look newer, soldered on with a dividing line. The patch-up job is a bit messy; Sturges would tell me that a bad weld will just crack in the future, so might as well do it right the first time.

“Your brother have a name?”

“Shaun.” 

His shirt is well-worn and dusty, with a spray of dried blood on the front. I bet his tie also has blood on it, but black is a color to hide in. I bet I could get his clothes clean — really clean. 

He’s so lovely. Would ‘beautiful’ be enough to describe him? Would Coddy tut and tell me it wasn’t the right word to use? Maybe he would glide over to Dad’s study and pull out the fat thesaurus from the shelf to help me find the word that best suits the metal-and-coolant that holds this human form in front of me. 

“Neil, you alright?” Nick’s brows are furrowed, and his yellow eyes remind me of the 추석 harvest moon that rolled through the sky each September. Or the sun before the bombs fell and tinged everything a sickly shade of green. His lips press into a thin, understanding grimace. “This old mug scaring ya?”

I shake my head and remind myself to blink. 

Handsome? Pretty? Cute? Gorgeous?

“Can I see your hand?” I ask, pulling both my own out from under the blanket. He gives me left one, the smooth one, but I put it down carefully on his lap. “No, not this one. The good one.” Both of his eyebrows shoot straight up before he gives me his right hand. 

I move each of his joints. They bend smoothly, shining like the barrel of a gun. His fingertips are a bit sharp, but not enough to cut. Only enough to leave indents in my palm when I squeeze them with some force. I can see the bare-bones (ha!) circuitry tucked into the core of his fingers. It must run all the way up his hand, into his arm. It’s warm. He’s warm. He’s lovely. 

“Neil,” he says, so, so quiet. I look up to see him take out another handkerchief from his pocket and lean over to blot the hot tears spilling from my eyes. I grind my teeth into dust to keep my lungs from letting out a single sound. Maybe my breath wavers, and maybe I tremble hard enough to shake the bed, but I lock my voice down tight so no Ferals or Raiders can hear me. 

Nick doesn’t say anything else, and wipes my eyes. 

“Can I hold your hand? Just until I sleep?” I ask when I’m sure my voice will be steady. 

"You got a time limit, Cinderella?"

 

It feels so good to laugh, to laugh helplessly, to stretch out beneath his sunny gaze. To feel him fold his hand over my own, to slot my fingers into the spaces between his like they were made for me. To feel safe, safer, now that someone is awake and watching. 

"You can call me Nat," I say. When he looks down, his eyes are amber-serious. 

“You sure have a lot of names, kid,” he says softly. I nod, snuggling deeper into the pillow. 

“But Nat is closest to my real name,” I say, and my voice is muffled by the blanket. 

“Nathaniel isn’t your real name?”

“It’s my given name. But my real name is the one that my dad uses when I’m in trouble.”

He laughs at that, head thrown back, his eyes glittering gold-happy, until I have to grin along with him. If I listen carefully, I can hear the mechanism in his chest humming a lullaby while it pumps synth blood. 

And later, when I’m half-asleep and not quite sure if I’m speaking, or just thinking to myself, I mumble into the pillow, “I gotta keep changing. And moving. The names help. I’m scared that if I sit down for too long, I won’t want to get up.” I try to open my eyes, try to see if Nick’s eyes are amber-serious again, but my eyelids are heavy, and that soft humming fills my chest with every breath. "Dad told me that, if you get stuck in a blizzard, you gotta keep walking. If you sit down to sleep, you'll die."

When I was seven, they found a toddler like that, buried in a snowbank near the river, perfectly interred and perfectly dead. He must have started feeling sleepy, and rested for a minute. Dad had kept me from school the next day, holding me to his chest, his heart beating fast. 

“Go to sleep, Natty,” Nick says gently, and turns off the lamp. 

 

 

 

 


	3. (Nick Valentine): Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: emotional rollercoaster, consumption of half-digested meat mention, vomit mention, cannibalism mention, accidental body mutilation mention, dissociation
> 
> also, i retconned somethings. i said before that Natty's pipboy is on his right arm. but he's right handing, so that doesn't make sense. it is now correctly placed on his left arm, with his tattoos. Previous chapters have been changed to reflect the fix.

 

 

1:15 PM, December 2nd, 2287

I get maybe half a second of pattering feet as a warning before Nat throws open the door to the Agency.  

“Whoa, kid, where’s the fire?” I say, hastily stubbing out my cigarette against the smudged brick wall and dropping it into the ashtray on the ground. When he whirls to face me, his eyes are wide with fear. In the alleyway, where the sun never reaches, they look as black as his pupils. His hair stands up wildly from his head, sleep-mussed. “You alright, Natty?” At the sound of his name, he loses some of the tremor in his arms, and steps closer to me, feet bare. 

“Thought — thought you left,” he mumbles, twisting his fingers until they’re pale. “And  _Anax̂_ wasn’t here.”

“And left the Agency? I’d have to take the sign down first,” I tease. At that, he grins, that pale flash of too-clean teeth against his dark skin, and relaxes his hands. “I let Nova out the gates in the morning; thought she might need to do her business. Didn’t wanna wake ya.” He’d slept like the dead, drooling into my pillow, hardly moving when I slipped out the door to catch Ellie before she knocked. _Take the day off_ , I had told her. _Piper will be glad for it. Let the kid sleep awhile_. He didn’t so much as stir when I tried to take that damn suffocating PipBoy off him, only to find that it was bolted into the space between is radius and ulna. 

And suddenly, he’s avoiding my gaze, doing some strange two-step as he inches closer to me and touches the crook of my elbow with a hesitant hand. I don’t say anything, and try to tamp down the swell of my heart when his small fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt. 

 

_Is this okay?_  the inward curve of his shoulders ask. _Is it okay to touch?_ Is it okay to walk backward into Uncanny Valley and somehow fly past the summit like an arrow into my mechanical chest? I consider telling him that people don’t usually touch Synths — the Gen 1 and 2’s, anyway. They trigger a part deep within the human brain that screams something, _something_ , just ain’t right, that this strange metal man is an impostor waiting to steal your skin. Clients flinch away from handshakes before clenching their teeth to get it over with. I watch Ellie from the corner of my eyes, timing the 0.4 seconds it takes for her to reason herself into tapping my back in a friendly hello. 

I don’t blame them; it’s just the hard-wired cringe in front of a sucker punch to the gut. 

But,  _Is it okay?_ his warm palm asks, and his eyes are sleepy now. He ducks his face into my bicep, stepping closer, his other hand hooking into the base of my suspenders. 

“Bit too late to be shy,” I say, my voice rough under the steady weight of his fingers. I keep absolutely still. 

“Heh heh,” he giggles, and rubs his nose fondly into my arm, the tips of his ears tinged a rosier brown. 

A growl rips through his stomach and echoes off the narrow walls, startling both of us. 

“Hungry?” I ask. Food’s been coded out from my hierarchy of needs, but it’s disquieting to remember that he hasn’t eaten in at least sixteen hours. Maybe more. 

He shakes his head, fast, like something is chasing him, then pauses before slowly nodding. 

“But _Anax̂_  will get me something.”

“A burger and fries to-go?”

“Oh!” He lets out a delighted laugh, a surprised laugh, and clutches tighter into my clothes. “How do you— you know what a burger is? How—” He dissolves into a fit of giggling and for a moment, he looks like a regular kid, a pre-war kid. Just a pre-war kid with a nice smile, who played too hard in the dirt, who has a mother waiting to scold him lovingly over the state of his hand-me-down clothes. But then he shifts, and his shirt collar slides to flash the mottled bruise that brackets where the rifle recoils into his shoulder every time he puts someone into the ground.

"The people who made me, the Institute, they uploaded the memories of some pre-war cop between my ears." I press my thumb against his neckline and drag the flannel and cotton to the side. "He thought he was going in for a brain scan at CIT. Guess they left the synth part in the fine print. My personality, my ethics — hell, even my name — they're all borrowed from the real Nick Valentine, from 200 years ago." The stark line of his collarbone. More and more of that bruise. I'm careful to keep the cloth of his jacket between my metal finger and the tender skin underneath. The line of his spine is loose and sweet and trusting. 

"A pre-war cop?" He repeats, his face pensive. "Like Boston PD?"

"Well, Chicago PD, first. He got moved over to Boston for the Eddie Winters' case. What's with the face, kid? You thinkin' we met before you swept me off my feet at 114?"

I guess I expect him to laugh, but his smile is subdued. Instead, he steps in even closer and closes his eyes. There’s a little whorl in his hair, on the top of his head. 

"Maybe," he says. "I might've seen him? Who's Eddie Winters?" His stomach moans again, more insistent this time, and he makes a face when I start to pull away. 

"He's scum of the earth, and not someone you should be worrying about. You sure Nova is bringing you something? Don't exactly see the guards letting her drag in a radroach by the antennas." I open the door to the Agency and the memory of his fingers still presses into the crook of my elbow. 

He takes a running leap and springs onto my desk in one effortless, elegant motion, somehow keeping all the pens and papers in their place, only to use it as a stepping stone to dive onto the bed and into my coat. 

" _Anax̂_ doesn't carry stuff back," he says, rolling himself up in my coat until just his face is peeking out, "It slows her down. She just eats for me and then shares when she gets back." 

She shares it? The faded buzz of a nature documentary flares up from Real Nick’s memories:  _...and licking the adult’s mouth. This stimulates the adult wolf into regurgitating the cached food in its stomach. The puppy then..._

She _shares_  it. 

He starts shuffling in his make-shift blanket again, but stops when I can't wipe the disgust off my face fast enough. 

"Is that... a wrong thing?" His voice is small and meek.

"Aw, Natty, it's not exactly _wrong_ , but..." I blow out an unneeded breath and close the door behind me to lean back against it. Pinch the bridge of my nose when I feel the phantom twinge of a migraine behind my eyes. Real Nick had to be put out of commission for days when one of these rolled up. Sometimes, a dark room and Jenny's hand on his back helped. Sometimes, it didn't. Can't say I envied him in this regard; no organic matter in the ol' noggin means no headaches. "It's not wrong, but don't you ever get sick? Can't imagine it tastes good, either."

He slowly pulls himself out of the coat and folds it neatly against the mattress, all the light gone from his motions. Tucks his knees in under him and twists his fingers again. 

"The — the PipBoy keeps me okay," he mumbles, and before I can ask him what he means, ask why there’s a PipBoy drilled into the bones of his arm, he continues, "And it _doesn't_ taste good. It doesn't. But nothing — nothing really tastes good here." And the admission of that last sentence hangs from his cracked lips, quiet and sad. 

“Can’t say I don’t understand what that’s like,” I concede softly. "But how 'bout you let Nova have her extra portion today and I'll treat you to something better than her... leftovers."

"They're not leftovers," he corrects quickly, and then hesitates, picking his bleeding lips with dirty nails. It takes the full ten steps across the room for me to muster up the determination needed to stretch my hand out, my bad hand, and gently pull his fingers away from his mouth. At that, he smiles sheepishly, some of the shine leaking back into his eyes. "Okay," he agrees, "can I get five minutes to pee and stuff?"

"Sure, kid. Bathroom's right there."

Instead of heading for the door under the stairs, he crouches down first and pulls out a backpack from under my bed to take out a small cloth, a toothbrush, and another small Mentats tin of what I assume to be toothpaste. Or maybe it’s Mentats and I’m just kidding myself here. 

"I don't remember putting that there. You moving in?"

"Forever," he declares. His smile sets his sepia eyes ablaze until they look like polished bronze, and every word in my throat dies when he laughs like he's loved me since the day I woke up in that garbage pile. With a flurry of his braid, he turns to scoot for the bathroom. Stops. "Do you have a mirror in there?"

"Ellie has a hand mirror in her desk, if you need it." I don't miss the relieved sigh that comes rushing out of his lungs as he closes the door to the bathroom behind him, mirror-less. 

 

//////////

 

1:45 PM, December 2nd, 2287

His hand is clamped onto the sleeve of my coat during our short walk to Power Noodles. Like a shadow, he presses himself to my flank, eyes darting at each new face he sees, then to their hands. Every guard has him pushing closer and closer into me, until the pedestrians we pass are staring right back at the kid who decided that touching a synth would be a good idea. His face is scrubbed clean now, like his nails, and there's a minty smell coming from his mouth. It _was_ toothpaste in that tin. Or maybe he crunched a mint-flavored Mentat when I wasn't looking. Hell if I know. It’s just another bullet point I add to my mile-long list of questions to ask him when he’s settled a bit. 

Off to the side, I see Myrna sidle out from under her store’s awning towards a pair of guards and grab one’s arm in a frenzied, crushing grip. 

“The Synths are stealing kids in broad daylight now!” Myrna whispers, loud enough for everyone in the area to hear. “Aren’t you gonna stop it? Why aren’t you stopping it?! I knew it’d show its true colors one day!” 

The guards look at each other uneasily. When Natty turns his head to face them, his expression hidden from me, both of the guards, along with a good portion of the gathering crowd, blanch in — what? Terror? Disgust? Astonishment? 

“They’re both Synths!” Myrna squawks, darting back to her store, “They can make kid Synths now!”

“Hey,” I warn in a low voice when I hear the near-silent sound of his knife sliding out of its sheath. He’s softer when he looks up at me, but I can still see the spitting image of Nova looking back, from the pinpoints of his pupils, straight down to the curl of his lip over sharp teeth. 

“Who’s the kid, Nicky?” one of the guards finally calls out. I recognize his voice behind the umpire's mask.

“He’s just a client, Jonah. But thanks for the warm welcome, folks.” I put my claw on his shoulder and squeeze with a steady pressure until he re-sheathes his knife furtively. The crowd disperses, and he watches them go with fierce eyes. 

“ _Anax̂_ would have killed them,” he says under his breath. 

“Nova wouldn’t have cared enough,” I counter sternly. "She's a gal of action. Words don't matter to her, and they shouldn't matter to you, either." His upturned face drinks in the dirty sunshine that comes filtering through the buildings, his skin smooth and caramel-colored, lacking scars and the pervasive marks of radiation damage. He's untainted, and perfect.

Natty nods begrudgingly. 

“I guess so,” he admits, fidgeting, “I’ll remember that.” I can’t help but smile at his reluctant pliancy. He's a good-natured kid. 

“Well, you can ask her when she comes back, just to make sure. But for now, maybe we can get some food in ya.”

When Takahashi's hulking form comes into view, he darts forward to hop up onto a vacant stool and puts a wondering hand on that dented metal side, all reserve or resentment forgotten. 

“Hello,” he chirps, his eyes wide. 

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?” Shimmering behind his modulated words is the stream of binary code he spits out, the one's and zero's too similar in frequency for humans to discern. 

"Eh?" Natty draws back, but only slightly. Guess whatever Asian blood that swims in part of his body isn't Japanese, then.

"This is my pal, Takahashi. Unfortunately, that's the only line he can really say, but he's saying hello right back at ya."

"Oh! Hello," he repeats, leaning right back up to the Protectron behind the counter. "Takahashi is a nice name."

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?”

"He's saying that it's nice to meet you. Hey, Takahashi, could I get a serving of noodles for Natty here?"

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?” he says, and starts to work on the next batch of noodles while I slip into the seat beside the kid. 

"What kind of noodles are served here?"

"Just one kind: freshly-made razorgrain noodles by Takahashi himself, all in a delicious broth of salted water. It's the best overpriced meal in town." I smile at the face he makes, move to ruffle his hair, but think better of it. Instead, I lean away from him to light a cigarette and take a deep pull. "It ain't gourmet, kid. But I'll feel a lot better once you get something to eat that isn't upchuck." He moves closer to me and I mirror his actions, moving away. “Hey, hey. Don’t breathe any of this stuff in, Nat.” 

Something changes in his face. He doesn’t answer, and rights himself calmly, his face blank and eyes glazed. Doesn’t move when Takahashi almost deposits the scalding bowl on top of him. I put out my cigarette in record time. Take a cursory look around to see if anybody is paying attention to us before shifting closer so that I can block out some of our surroundings with my body. Slowly, he opens and closes his hands, dispassionate, as if it’s his first time seeing them. 

“Hey, honey, hey,” I murmur, moving the bowl out of the way. There is a glint of silver in the corner of my eye, and I find two wedding rings twined into the end of his braid. “Something wrong, Natty?” Can I touch him? Is it okay to touch him? My arms itch to tuck him under my chin and rock and rock. 

“Nick, am I dirty?” His voice is far away, like the soft sounds of water at the bottom of a well. “Will you get your hands dirty if you hold mine?” Then, before I can respond, “Nick, I’m not hungry anymore. I ate my dad.” It takes me a second to register his words. He twists up to look at me, unfocused and flat.

I take his hand discreetly, tracing over the triangles of his tattoo with the synthetic pad of my thumb. The damn PipBoy bisects the pattern. There are light callouses on his fingertips, and heavier ones on the top of his palm, along the join of his digits. 

"After you eat, you can tell me all about that, about how you got here."

"I'm not hungry."

"Even so," here, I push the bowl of noodles towards him with my free hand and set a pair of chopsticks on top, "you should eat." After a moment, he picks up the utensils. 

"잘먹겠음니다," he mutters. Ah, Korean, then. He eats, using his right hand to shove chopsticks full of uneven noodles into his mouth, not bothering to chew much. His left hand holds fast to mine. Intertwined with his, it looks even more like a mockery of the human form. 

"I don't think you're dirty, Natty. You probably did what you had to do."

There's the quiet _plip plip_  of tears falling into soup. I take my hat off, to hell with the stares that suddenly fixate on my exposed circuitry, and settle it on his head, over the little whorl in his hair. It tips down, and shadows his eyes from the sun. 

 


	4. (Natty): Lying To a Kid Doesn't Count If It Makes Him Feel Better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: fingernail injury, cannibalism, dissociation, panic attacks, body horror

11:01AM, December 3rd, 2287

Nick had wanted me to sit across from his desk, where his clients usually sat. Said it was professional. But it was too much like an interrogation. Like Mr. Mann scowling at me disapprovingly for fights I never started; Dad standing between me and him, his loving back in front of my chair, his fiery eyes boring holes into the principal’s sweat-shining forehead.

 _I am always on your side,_  he would say after I had been sent home with bruises on my jaw and my knuckles scraped rosy (but you should have seen the other guys!).  _Always, always, al—_

So instead, we sit on Nick’s bed, Anax̂ and I. Nick settles in to my right when I wave him over and Ellie pulls up a stool, notepad in hand, so that it looks more like a sleepover than an information session. Anax̂ puts her heavy head on my lap and sighs. She lets me pet her ears. 

"When the bombs fell," I start, curling my left hand into her scruff (except it's not scruff -- it's luxurious and thick and softer than anything in this wasteland), "my dad had just adopted Shaun. Well,  _we_  had just adopted Shaun, I guess. The judge made me promise that I would be a good older brother. So that’s why Shaun’s different from me. Looks different. His hair is more brown than black. And he’s very, very pale. And he’s got green eyes. And when the bombs fell, Dad scooped up me and Shaun in each arm and ran, even though I  _told_  him I could go by myself. He tried to get Coddy, too, but Coddy said he would need to protect the house until we came back, so we had something to come back to at all.

"Dad was allowed to go into Vault 111 because he was a soldier before. They checked us off on a clipboard and let us through, and they made us all change into these suits. And then we had to get into these pods because the scientists said it would check if we had any diseases. I remember it being cold. Really cold. And I must have fallen asleep because the next moment, I woke up and saw three people in front of my dad’s pod. Two were wearing, uh, hazmat suits? And the third one was bald and had on, like, sorta raider gear. Armor and stuff. And he had a big scar on his face, from his forehead down his eye. They opened my dad’s pod and tried to take Shaun and Dad said no, so they should have stopped because no  _means no._

"But they didn’t, so Dad’s hand kinda shot out and crunched in the face of one of the hazmat people. She was yelling." And I had banged on the glass, my fists stinging, my voice ragged from screaming and screaming. Had clawed at the join of the paneling until my fingernails came loose and plinked on the icy floor in a flurry of blood. "And the other hazmat person moved in and my dad kicked him really hard in the chest so he flew backwards. I thought he was winning, but the raider man shot him right here." I touch a finger to my temple and Ellie inhales a quick breath. Nick watches me with steady eyes beneath the brim of his hat, not even blinking, not even fake breathing. "They took Shaun after. Ran away. And I think they put me to sleep again.

"And this time, the second time I woke up, the pod opened, too, so I fell out because my legs were really weak. But as soon as I could move, I crawled to Dad and pushed the button that opened his pod, and he fell out, just like me." Face first. Hitting the damp floor with a thump while I clutched at his clothes with injured fingers, asking him to wake up. "I don’t really — really know how long I stayed there. I thought maybe my dad would wake up if I got him warm. So I was hugging him and only went away to pee in a bucket. I stayed there for a really long time, ‘till I couldn’t move, even if I wanted to. Didn’t even have to pee anymore, ‘cause I hadn’t been eating or drinking. I really thought he was dead. And I thought I was dead, too."

"But he wasn’t?" Ellie says, her voice surprised and quiet.

"He wasn’t. He talked to me, suddenly. Told me to get up. He said a good big brother would find Shaun instead of sulking. That he was disappointed and knew I could do better. And I told him I couldn’t. I was too weak to do anything." No spare water left in my body for tears in that dark room, with the glow of faulty electronics the only intermittent light.

"He was talking? With a brain injury?" Ellie asks, scribbling something down. I nod. Ellie looks briefly at Nick, who only shakes his head slightly.

"Go on," Nick says gently.

In that lightless room, he had told me to eat his legs, that it would give me the strength to walk out of here alive, to chase Shaun to the ends of the earth.  _Stay away from the rot_ , he had said,  _and leave my joints intact. Stop crying. Do what I say._  So I had taken the knife that he always carried in his boot and carved the flesh of his calves into short bites after stripping away the skin like he showed me when we culled overpopulated deer. Cut around the bad meat of his bloated toes because I’m a good child,  _his_  good child. Scraped tendons away from gleaming bones. Chewed and chewed that stringy, blood-soaked meat and swallowed and chewed—

"Natty?" Nick calls my name, his firmer hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. Everything hazes over, and dulls, except the twin pinpricks of his eyes, far, far away.

"He told me to eat his legs, and I did." The sound of my voice bubbles up and then disappears. There is only my father humming an old melody (the one that sounds like my mother’s worn 한복 dress). The desks, the chairs — they overlap with the pods and machinery until I’m seeing double, until I don’t know which one is the dream. The lights flicker. I flex my hands and feel like I’m moving through mud. Seconds slow into minutes into hours. Ellie says something, but I don’t hear it. My father hums in my ear, loud.

A spark of pain cuts through the veil. I look down and Anax̂ nips my arm again, the sound of her insistent growling growing clearer.

"Nova, quit that," I hear Nick say. She bites, honestly this time, and draws blood. I gasp and the world floods back into my senses, the background noise of Nick scolding Anax̂, and Ellie leaping up to get a bandage, comforting and familiar. I blink my eyes. Time starts to tick again.

"It’s okay, Nick," I say, flexing my hands again, faster this time, feeling my muscles come together and spring apart like a perfect machine. All the mud has disappeared. "Anax̂ just doesn’t like it when I go blank like that." (Even though the stillness keeps me safe.)

"There’s better ways to ground you than taking a chunk outta ya," Nick snaps. His eyes blaze with a canary-colored anger. Ellie holds a piece of gauze to my wound. It’s small, and will heal quickly.

"S'okay. She doesn’t like it," I repeat, flattening my hand over the makeshift bandage, and Anax̂ pulls her lips back in a savage grimace. And maybe my brain isn't cottony anymore, but there's a deep chill in the core of my chest now. The nerves at the end of my hands and the tips of my teeth tingle like I've grabbed a live wire. "Um, I felt better after that. After eating, I mean. Got enough energy to sit up. And my dad told me to get out of there. To take his rings and get out and get some food." I pull my braid over my shoulder and touch the two silver wedding bands woven into my hair. My hands are trembling. "It’s my mom and dad’s. I asked my dad if he was coming with me and he said for me to come back once I had eaten something to pull him out. So after I rested for a moment, I got up and left. Took Dad’s knife with me.

"There were radroaches and stuff. Leftover cans of water. I found an exit that wouldn't open without a PipBoy, so I went to go find one. Only, I think the Vault was experimenting on a new type, because it was smaller than the ones the cops used." I take a deep, shuddering breath and remember it doesn't hurt anymore, that the only pain in my body is the small nibble Anax̂ gave me. (Thank you, Anaadax̂.) The muscles in my left arm spasm anyway. "I took it off a scientist. And when I put it on, it said 'Press "Continue" when Med-X has been administered.' I didn't know what Med-X was at that time. So I clicked the button."

I promise I don't mean to do it. I was doing fine. But Anax̂ shifts and accidentally brushes the PipBoy on my wrist. It thrums down, down into my marrow and my arm  _jerks_ , slamming my forearm into the wall. And that's fine, too, but it scares me. I don't expect it, and it scares me, and I slam it into the wall again on the rebound. Nick clamps a metal hand down on my shoulder, but something switches off in my brain, the logic part, and suddenly, I'm back near that scientist's skeleton, thrashing and screeching and ripping at the thick needle that is slowly,  _slowly_  drilling into my skin, my muscle, my bones. I wail something wordless and garbled at that bright memory of pain. Slam the PipBoy, once, twice against the wall.

Anax̂ lunges and knocks me down into Nick's lap. The air rushes out of my lungs when she thumps down onto my chest and seizes my arm in her mouth, stopping me from trying to beat the PipBoy off.

"Leggo! Leggo!" I shriek, lashing out with my other arm and striking her muzzle over and over again. I get my feet under me and kick her ribs with my heel. She only closes her eyes and flattens her ears against her skull to wait it out, her teeth locked shut, blood pricking up where her incisors press into my skin. Nick snatches my right arm, pins it to the mattress so I can't hurt Anax̂ anymore. At the same time, Ellie darts over my legs and sits on them.

I flail for what seems like an eternity, my face wet with tears and spit, my ears ringing, my breath hammering against my throat painfully. But eventually, through my weeping, cuts Nick's low voice in my ear.

"It's alright, Natty," he murmurs, his grip on my arm immovable. "It's alright. You cry all you need, honey. But you're safe here. It's alright." My head is warm on his thigh. I feel Ellie stroking my knee.

"Anax̂," I sob, "Anaadax̂, 'm sorry. I didn't mean it, I --"

I feel her jaw loosen. Withdraw. (She knows I'm done now.) Her tongue swipes into my mouth, back against my molars, then against my cheeks with a soggy rasp.

 _My darling child,_  each pass of her tongue says. She croons as she cleans the tears off my face, licks away the blood dotting the pattern of her teeth on my arm.  _My little, last whelp._

"I'm sorry! 'M sorry!"

 _Quiet, now._  She nuzzles into the hollow of my throat, and licks at the pulse hammering in my jugular.  _No more of that human leaking. Quiet, or death will find you. Quiet, quiet._  I bite off my next sob with the snap of my teeth. The deep pressure of her torso against my chest forces me to measure each breath against the crushing weight. Open my eyes wide to scan for ferals or raiders, but only catch the sight of Nick's brows furrowing at the sudden interruption in tears. (Quiet, quiet, quiet.)

"I — I think I passed out a-after that. But-t I made it out-t of the vault—"

"No, no, no, let’s take a break, Blue," Ellie says, getting off my legs gingerly. "Let me get you some water, okay?"

"N-no, it’s okay from here—"

"I believe ya. I do." She grabs a can out of the cabinet and pries it open with practiced fingers. "But still, let’s take a break. I think, uh, Nick needs to run a diagnostic."

"...I sure do." Nick says after a pause. "12:21 PM is my scheduled diagnostic time. Right on the dot. If that’s okay with you, kid." I nod, slowly at first, and then faster, and accept the water she holds out to take a small sip, sighing when it hits my raw, stinging throat. Every swallow pushes back the thundering in my ears until I reach the bottom of the can and my head is semi-clear again.

"Let me get a stimpack for those teeth marks." Ellie takes the empty can from my grasp.

"It’s okay. They-ey’ll heal."

Anax̂ snorts and noses me toward the edge of the bed. I push back, shaking my head. That’s a mistake. She curls her lips at my disobedience and shoves me in earnest, with a strength I can’t hope to compare to right now. Nick catches my elbow before I tip face-first into the wooden floor.

"What, wake up on the wrong side of hell, Nova?" Nick grinds out between clenched teeth when he scoops me back onto the bed again. Anax̂ shows her incisors at him, flippantly. He is insignificant to her. She motions her snout in Ellie’s direction, who approaches with a stimpack. I backpedal and bury my face straight into Nick’s shoulder, hands clutching fistfuls of his white shirt. I feel him jerk; then, his skinny hand hovers, hovers until it settles on my back to rub wide circles between my shoulder blades. Another growl from Anax̂ has me unwillingly extending my trembling arm. He smells like hot metal, cigarettes, cologne, electricity running and running through alloy-plated wires —

"Diagnostic!" I yelp when Ellie touches my arm to position it better. "What — what do you do for a diagnostic?" It's a second before he speaks, but I feel his words reverberating in his chest when he does, and I sneakily loosen the hand in his shirt to slide it over where humming radiates outward from his mechanical heart. He doesn't even flinch this time, because I was so sneaky.  _I_  don’t even flinch this time when the needle slides into my arm, near the punctures.

"Mostly wade through damage alerts. Make sure everything is calibrated right and the sensory input makes sense. Maybe tweak the ol’ software a bit or shut down some secondary functions to boost my hearing for a moment. ‘Course, I try to do it in a somewhat safe area, since my reaction time isn't exactly Olympic-level during the sweep."

"You can change your own software?"

"I sure can. Just like you can change your mind on whether someone is friend or foe, or decide to shake up your usual breakfast for the day."

I take a moment to think about his words. Ellie moves away behind me, dropping the half-empty syringe into a drawer again. 

"I can protect you while you do that," I say, slowly, looking up at him. I see the metal-copycat muscles shift his eyes over to me. His face is so different from his fixed, plated body: moving, flexing, twitching the corner of his mouth into a half-smile when I bump my head into his sharp chin (an accident!). "So you don’t have to worry."

"That's awfully brave of you, kid," Nick replies solemnly, settling back against the wall and pulling me just a little bit closer, caging in my trembling arm so it stops shaking. “Looks like I owe you one again."

His words tingle my chest. I like it when he thinks I'm brave. I like it when he thinks of me. I’m so tired. 

His eyes dim. Something whirs quietly in his chest as the slope of his broad shoulders relax. His head lists towards mine the tiniest bit. Maybe this is the closest he can get to sleeping. Maybe he’s dreaming, while his eyes glow like distant, extinguishing stars. Maybe if I reach into the recesses of his neck, I can strip out those fraying wires and twist in new ones, the ones with waterproof, PVC coating. Maybe I can extract that stripped screw in his jaw and put in an oiled one before sanding down the head until it looks like there's nothing there. Titanium alloy, of course. Only the best -- 

Ellie blocks my hand from subconsciously crawling into the hole in his neck. 

"I don't think he would say 'no'," she murmurs, "but maybe you should ask him, to be sure." 

"Y-yes!" I stammer, snatching back my hand fast enough to knock my funny bone on the wall behind me. “I know that! Because I shouldn’t touch anyone without their explictent—” I bite my tongue hard enough to taste blood and my English teacher’s reprimand, “— _explicit_ consent. Their explicit consent. Or, that’s how it used to be?” I can feel my cheeks burning. Ellie sits down next to me with a soothing smile. (She ignores my stupid tangle of stupid words that tumble around like broken teeth in my stupid mouth.)

"You’re right. Like I said, I don't think he would mind." She tilts her head and then narrows her eyes, studying my face. "You're not scared of him." 

"Of Nick?"

"Yeah."

"Why would I be scared?"

"He--" Ellie cuts herself off, reformulating, rearranging her words, "He's not exactly a common sight in the Wasteland."

"What's a common sight here, then?" I ask. Ellie stares at me long enough to get me nervous, and I jam my back against Nick's shoulder. 

"People," Ellie finally says, "Humans, I mean."

"I've met some good people," I say cautiously, confused at her previous pause, "but more raiders. So I should be careful about meeting people, because they have a higher chance of being bad. But Nick was the only synth I met. And he turned out to be good. So all the synths I know are good, right now."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a gut reaction. A knee-jerk fear. A lot of people get that when they look at Nick."

I glance up at him, his lax face.

"More than walking outside the Vault and seeing that the sky was green? More than seeing the horizon in splinters?" I struggle to grasp the words swirling in my brain. How do I tell her, that when I stood on the platform after making the long trek out of the earth, when I looked over the vast emptiness of this olive-tinged world, when I saw barren trees stick up anemic fingers to rake at the sun, I started over from zero? I threw them all away by the second irradiated breath I took. Chucked my picture-book morals, my childish expectations, my prim, America-approved camouflage, my school name. By the time I turned around and saw a massive wolf watching me with eyes the color the sky used to be, I had been born again. 

 _Mother_ , I had called her, and she approved. Wagged her tail in a strange side-to-side flopping motion (like she hadn't done it in a long time) and trotted over to snuffle into my hair.  _Mother, mother._

"I'm not scared of him," I say instead. Ellie reaches out, slowly, to ruffle my hair. 

 

 


	5. (Nick Valentine) A Three-Pronged Conversation With the Dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mood swings, platonic intimacy, and remembered cruel and unusual punishment

8:14:28 PM, December 5th, 2287 

It’s a hell of an unsettling sight to see that affectionate gaze turn snarling over the expanse of a single answer. 

“I can’t _put off_ getting my brother back—”

“You’re not putting off anything, kid. The fact is that—”

“—and if you aren’t going to help me, I’ll go get him myself—”

“I never said I wouldn’t help you—”

“—because Shaun needs me right now! I’m his older brother! I should have rescued him sooner! I—”

“ _Natty_ ,” I say firmly, and grab his wrists to stop the trembling that is ricocheting down his arms and curling his fingers into his palms. He only grinds his teeth and pulls his shoulders up to defensively try to jerk his hands away, but he isn’t strong enough to do anything of the sort. “Natty, listen to me. Your father seems like a swell guy; I’m not doubting ya. That’s why I find it a bit hard to believe he’d send a slip of a thing like you across the Wastes to chase down a kidnapper. If I were your father —”

“But you’re _not_ my father,” Natty spits out and uses my arms as leverage to send his knee into the metal bone of my thigh, only to meet the plate that covers it with a muffled _thump_. 

“Good form, kid.” I can’t seem to keep that edge of fondness from crawling into my voice. He struggles passionately for a minute more, lunging forward to headbutt my solar plexus, whipping his leg behind mine to knock me off balance. I get a flash of the Old Nick’s memories: police trainees being taught hand-to-hand by getting tackled to the floor. Experience was getting your ass handed to you by your superior. You’d get thrown over some sergeant's shoulder, and say thank you mid-air if you wanted to keep a good impression. “Try behind the heel, honey. Plant it and shove me hard to use my weight against me.” 

At that, tears well up in his eyes, and he goes limp. He crowds closer to me to snuggle his face into the stomach of my oil-stained shirt like he doesn’t care that I don’t squish the same way a human does. When I drop his forearms in startled surprise, he reaches behind me to wedge himself closer into my space. 

“Wiping your snot on me?” I say, because I can’t say anything else. 

“Please, Nick,” he whispers, his voice cracking, “I can’t trust anybody else.” His eyes don’t meet mine. 

“Oh, kiddo,” I mutter, and scoop him up into my arms. It feels good to hold him, to feel his weight against my chest as he works through the little sniffles against the tattered skin of my neck. He’s like a rag doll against me, thin hands curled up like two drowned birds. 

I’m not saying his moods are hard to handle, but sometimes they carousel around fast enough to give me whiplash. Add detergent, softener, a wave of seething anger that leaves him slamming his PipBoy against the walls. Soak in too many tears to wipe away, but just enough to wet the scruff of Nova’s neck when he cries quieter than Ellie can hear at night. Rinse cycle those sparkling eyes as he calls my name in a robin’s song. Spin dry. Set out to hang. 

He traces the edges of my torn skin with a wondering hand. 

_ Isn’t Blue just getting the short end of the good ol’ puberty stick?  _ Piper had asked, leaning against the doorframe while Ellie slipped into her coat behind me. _The crying and stuff, Nat does that, too. It’s not like teenagers stop being teenagers just ‘cause the Geiger counter is a lil’ bouncy._

_ Or,  _ Natalie cut in, shoving her sister’s hip to the side and shooting up a nasty scowl, _it could be the, y’ know, horrendous amount of trauma. If Blue really was frozen and thawed like Piper said he was, then all of this must look like a super shipwreck to him._ Piper slung an arm around Natalie’s neck to blow a raspberry straight into her freckled cheek. _Gross! Uncle Nick, tell her to stop!_

_ Pipes,  _ Ellie stepped in, stern, buttoning up her front, _Don’t wake him up._ But she still accepted the kiss that Piper pressed into the back of her hand, the corner of her mouth. 

_ Double gross, _ Natalie said, making a face and pushing past me into the Agency. _Do ya think Blue will let me cheat him in poker again?_

And in the end, maybe it’s both of those reasons. Maybe it’s something more that makes his face twist in a slew of expressions like a program gone haywire. 

“Feeling better?” I ask when he nudges my hat aside to nuzzle into the crown of my head. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the feeling of his soft cheek against the cracked plates of my skull. 

“Yes,” he responds, meekly, contritely. “‘m sorry for hitting.”

“Let’s try to use our words next time, okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll remember that.”

“It’s alright, kid. I know it ain’t easy.”

“It just gets worse,” he explains, leaning back so I have to look up at him to meet his fidgety gaze. “I feel something and it gets worse and worse until it swallows me. Like I'm touching fire and can't let go. And I feel like everybody is laughing at me for it.”

“Even me?”

He wrings his fingers desperately, until they’re white at the tips. 

“Especially you,” he mumbles. 

“I see. Well, sometimes, not everything you feel is true, right?”

“Yeah. I know.” He rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. “They say I have black-and-white thinking characterized by mood swings and feelings of unworthiness.” His fingers swing air quotes around the medical analysis that overflows from his mouth like a well-memorized verse, then flop back to my chest. “I know what I’m supposed to do when — when I feel this way. I’m just — it’s just hard.” A deep breath. “Nick, I — I need to find Shaun. I’m worried about him. He’s — he’s the only brother I got. I promised the judge. I promised my _dad_.” His voice breaks.

“I need your pop’s permission,” I respond evenly. I wait for him to stop gritting his teeth before I continue. “I can go with you to Sanctuary. But we can’t start any real tracking until I know what’s going on in his head. Kellogg is a dangerous man, Natty.”

“Then can we at least check the house? Please, Nick. He might be there. We might not need to go anywhere. He might be so close. I’ll be careful. We’ll be careful.” When he leans in close enough to press his mouth to my forehead, I have to summon every last synthetic nerve to keep my eyes from sliding closed at that long-forgotten touch. “Please, Nicky.”

And there are those gentle, clever hands smoothing down my shoulders, my jaw, the twisted wires near my coolant-filled jugular. 

_ We’ve known each other for three weeks _ , I should say. _You shouldn’t love someone so carelessly,_ I should say. But even then, who would I be scolding? Him? Myself? In the half-light of the Agency, I can almost swear his eyes glow brighter than mine. 

“Please,” he says softly, and this time, his voice is eerily different. I still hear those high, clear notes, but underneath it all is the overlap of a magnetic rasp so that, just for a second, the words coming from his mouth sound like two people at once.

I don’t say anything, only tighten my hold on his legs as my battery heart jumps into my mouth. He doesn’t stop soothing the sides of my neck with the pads of his calloused thumbs, his mouth curved into the smallest smile. My list of questions for his father grows by another three bullet points. 

“Okay,” I finally relent, “okay. Fine. But you listen to my orders. Got it, kid?”

“Yes! Yes, I promise! _Thank you_ , Nick,” he says. Throws his arms around me to hug me tightly against his thin rib cage. 

 

8:33:01 PM, December 5th, 2287 

And when we walk through twisting, dark alleyways, letting the security guards pass by us, our backs pressed to brick walls, his hand clutching my bad one, my self-control slips for just a moment. 

“That thing you did, back at the Agency…” I start, then stop to shake my head. Curiosity killed the cat, they say, but the rest of the question tumbles out anyway. “What was that?”

“What thing?” 

Someone passes by us. Heavy on his right leg, slight limp, the scratch of a canvas jumpsuit, one hand in his pocket, the smell of gunpowder. It’s Arturo. I wait until he’s out of earshot anyway. Natty hides behind me, as if that will somehow make it harder to see a six-foot-something synth with glowing eyes and the huge wolf behind him. 

“You did something with your voice. Changed it, somehow.” 

“Oh,” he says flatly and makes a face I haven’t seen before. Scrunches his brows and squints his eyes, scratching the back of his head. We start walking again. I try not to rush him, even though I dim the sensitivity in my hands to turn up my hearing. 

“Do you believe in magic?” I hear him say over the rattle of metal steps. I glance back to see him coaxing Nova up the transparent stairs. Her ears press back against her head as she snorts, and then bounds forward, taking the steps eight at a time, jangling loud against the muted night. “Anax̂!” At the top of the platform, she gives a hard shake and then a yip, shifting her paws back and forth over the grate under her. “Anadax̂, we were supposed to be _quiet.”_ She groans and paces as we climb the rest of the way up, trots ahead, then sits herself firmly down against a wall. 

“Can’t say I do. Believe in magic, I mean,” I urge. 

“Gueh, are we still talking about this?”

“Not if you don’t want to, no.”

He lets out a groan similar to Nova’s and digs his face into my side.

“Okay, so if you don’t believe in magic,” his voice is muffled by my jacket, “do you believe in Psykers?”

“It’s… difficult to. I’ve never met one.”

“Until now.”

“Until now?”

“That’s what I am. I’m a Psyker,” he says crossly. He opens his mouth and gets a couple of light bites onto my stomach before I pull him away. 

“That’s dirty.” His cheeks are squished between my spindly fingers, puffing them forward. 

“Ith noth,” he mutters. 

“So you’re a Psyker?”

When he sticks out his tongue to lick my fingers, I pull away. 

“I am.”

“And that double voice, that was your power?”

“Half of it.”

I stop walking. Turn his face gently toward me. 

“Never seen you so chatty,” I say, amused. His hands pick at the end of his braid and he worries his lip with his teeth. “It’s not a crime if you don’t tell me.” With a deep breath, he closes his eyes and puts the weight of his head in my hands. Nestles against my fingers with that fluffy cheek. 

“I wanna tell you. I just — just don’t like talking about it. First people are like, ‘Wow! No language barriers! You can talk even when it’s noisy!’ But then you tell them the second part, and suddenly it’s, ‘Don’t take the gag out of your mouth. I know it’s not on purpose. The other parents are scared.’”

“They gagged you?” My brows furrow. 

“At school. They were supposed to stop in high school ‘cause they say you’re old enough to control yourself, but October rolled around and —” His lips lift in a snarl, but before I can really get a look at his canines, he relaxes his face again. “Did you see how I mitil-mitigated my anger there?”

“I did. It was impressive.” It only takes a heartbeat of hesitation before I lean down to press my forehead against his, briefly. I pull away before he can hear my fans whirr against the burning fury in my guts. “They shouldn’t have done that.”

“That’s why I don’t like talking about it. Because it changes people’s view of me.”

“So what is it exactly?”

“It’s… the power of conversation, I guess. The power _to_ converse, no matter the barrier. Language, sound, species. As long as we’re standing within talking distance, as long as you _can_ communicate, and as long as I _want_ to communicate, we’ll understand each other.”

“And the double voice?”

“Ehh. It’s not persuasion, exactly. It’s just a second glance. I don’t convince people outright. I just make them give me the benefit of the doubt. Make them reconsider my words.”

My mouth itches for a cigarette, so I take one out, put it in between my teeth. Don’t light it though. He doesn’t look like he’s lying. His face is open, backlit by the yellow-green glow of the city, and none of his usual lingering micro-expressions of guilt or anxiety are on his face. The bones of his jaw still rest on my fingers. 

“Didn’t feel any different when you tried it out on me, though.”

“I didn’t try it out,” he says, glaring. “I don’t ever do it purposely. And it doesn’t work on Coddy, either. The second part doesn’t work, I mean. Can you turn off your hearing?”

“I can.” I switch it off, and Nova’s panting, the sound of distant gunshots, the rattle of the Mayor’s elevator, it all goes silent around me. Without the extra data flooding into my head, I can focus on the light dusting of freckles that have started to appear across the bridge of his nose. Maybe it’s a bad idea to cut off one of my senses so near to Kellogg’s old hideout, but Nova still sits in the corner of my vision, as calm as she can be so high up in the air. 

“But you can still hear me.”

I nearly jump out of my skin. His voice isn’t quite in my head, but not quite at his mouth, either. It hovers somewhere in my ear canals, whispering peacefully into my processors. I switch my hearing back on and the world explodes into data points again. 

“I can.”

“That’s why I can trust you, you know?” He pushes past my hand and gestures for me to hold him, like a child. I’d be lying if say I don’t gather him into my arms the moment he asks me to. “I’m not bad, Nick.”

“I know,” I reassure. “But?”

“But sometimes it slips out without me knowing. The double voice. And sometimes I think people like me because I made them like me.”

“You said it wasn’t that powerful.”

“It’s not.”

“But you still think about it.”

He nods and looks up at the stars glittering an elegy above us. Then looks down and grins, his eyes narrowing into happy half-moons. He plucks the unlit cigarette from my mouth and dips it into my front pocket. 

“But you like me.”

“You’re alright.”

He gives one startled laugh and then claps his hands over his mouth to giggle. There’s that slow smile that spreads over my face without permission, the creeping warmness that settles in my chest. 

“You like spending time with me,” he jabs a playful finger into my sternum. I walk towards the end of the platform, pretend to ignore him while he chatters muffled variations of the same phrase into the collar of my coat. He stops when the steel door looms over us. “Is that Kellogg’s house?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem like there’s anyone inside, though.”

Disappointment flashes across his face but he wriggles out of my arms and tries the door. Locked. 

“Let me see that,” I say, nudging him out of the way. I yank out one of the bobby pins that Ellie keeps stuck in the border of my shirt and lever it open. 

“We can break the window,” Natty says while I jiggle the lock. 

“Not the front one, we can’t. Security will know someone did it, and the Mayor won’t like that. His slogan is ‘Safety—’ damn it.” The pin falls apart in my hands. I fish out another one while Natty leans over the rails. 

“There’s a window on this side.”

“Over a thirty-foot drop, yes. No ladder, either.”

There’s a rattle. I whip my head around just in time to see Natty launch himself up the face of the shack, find a fingerhold ten feet above him, and scuttle around the corner of the building. The pin clatters through the grate as I lunge after him. 

“ _Natty Snow!”_ I hiss, poking my head around the edge to see him climbing hand-over-goddamn-hand towards the far window. He pauses to glance back at me. 

“...yes?” He quirks his brows in momentary confusion. “You were talking about this window, right?”

“I’m pretty damn sure the laws of gravity still work after the bomb!” At that, he snorts exactly like Nova does and starts moving away. “ _Natty!”_ He ignores me. When I turn to see if Nova is watching, I see her pressed into the corner of the house and wall, eyes staring fixedly upward, no help at all. The scrape of feet on brick sends me whirling around the corner again to catch him releasing his grip on the metal roof, shooting the two feet needed to grasp the top of the window. “ _Jesus_ _Christ_ , kid, you’re gonna fall.”

“I was climbing before I could walk,” he responds evenly. Leans back, catching the sill with one hand, and deftly shatters the portion of the pane nearest to the lock with the toe of his boot. It doesn’t sound any louder than a Nuka bottle smashing on the ground. Before I can say anything else, he nudges open the glass with his foot and swings inside. 

“Abracadabra,” he says with a flourish when he swings open the door. Nova pushes past him and bolts inside. I want to tell her not to touch anything, but she simply beelines to the far wall and sprawls on the ground. “Anadax̂, you okay?”

“Aaah beh beh,” she wails, miserable. 

“Oh, Anax̂,” he croons, but before he can crouch down to hug her, I snag his arm. 

“You wanna tell me what all that was about?”

“All what?”

“Out of the million different ways to get inside, you decided to choose the one-on-one against physics?”

He pulls his arm away. 

“I’ve never fallen before.”

“Falling to your death is a one-time thing, _kid_. It’s not gonna let you off because of a perfect track record.”

“What’s with you, Nick? I’m fourteen years old, not four. I think I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”

“Not if you’re gonna make ones like _those_ , you’re not.”

“Nat’s fourteen years old,” he shoots back. “Not me, Nat. Piper’s sister, Nat. She’s fourteen but I don’t see you _or_ Piper _or_ Ellie hovering over her like a nervous parent.”

“Natalie doesn’t try to _Cirque du Soleil_ herself up the side of a building!”

“But she _does_ print a list of cheating card sharks in the newspaper every week,” he says, exasperated, “and she’s never wrong, either. Because she’s good at what she does, just like I’m good at climbing. Stop undercutting me.”

But you’re _different,_ Nat. _God_ , you weren’t meant to be in this blasted hellscape, wringing your lightly calloused fingers hard enough to hear the bones creak. Look at your clean smile. Look at how your face lights up when Natalie teaches you how to count cards at blackjack. Look at how the sun follows to pour gold in your path — _and I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you_. I look at you and see hyacinths. You weren’t made for this fear, this handful of dust —

“Alright,” I say instead. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” he says after a moment of wary silence. He takes a small step back. 

“Just… be careful.”

His mouth softens into a grin.

“I can say the same for you, old man.”

I shake my head while he crouches down to pet Nova. 

“It’s not the same. I’m fixable.”

“So am I,” he smiles. “That’s what I pay doctors for.”

No, Natty, not in the same way. Not -- 

“Weho,” says Nova. 

“I’m sorry, Anadax̂. Let’s rest for a little bit, okay? I don’t… I don’t think there’s anybody here. Right?”

“...There probably hasn’t been for at least a month, if the dust says anything,” I say at his prompting. It’s messy. There are papers scattered around the room and piled up on the desk, along with screwdrivers and wrenches. Beer bottles. A lantern. I draw the curtains for both windows then flick the lights on. 

“What’s --”

I put out a hand to stop him before he picks up an errant paper off the floor. 

“Try to look first, before touching anything. What do you see?” 

“Oh, um. Tools and papers. There’s a desk. Some chairs.” 

“Doesn’t really look like merc’s lair, huh?”

“Yeah, I thought there would be more guns.”

“What else do you see?”

“Mats. They’re rubbery.”

“Shock resistant. You can walk over them quiet as a ghost. Look at this one right here.”

“It’s sorta old and cracked. But I thought that was just how it was here.” 

“Not saying you’re wrong, kid. Look at that one, though. Near the wall.”

He scrunches his brows in concentration. 

“It’s old but… it kinda looks lighter? Near the top.”

“I think so, too. Looks scraped up. All the lighter ones are near the wall, eh?”

“What does that mean?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

“Two cups,” he points out. 

“Two chairs, too. Come here, Natty. Let’s try to leave one set of prints.”

He gladly clambers into my arms, and leaving Nova to rest, we gingerly step up the stairs. 

“One bed, one sleeping bag. Pots and stuff. Duct tape?”

“That’s important,” I say. “It looks used. Look at that paneling near the head of the bed.”

“It doesn’t look like there’s duct tape on it.”

“No, but the floor underneath looks dinged up. Bet someone used a screwdriver to pry the panel off pretty regularly. Should we take a look?” I crouch down and get the thin edge of my bad hand under the panel. It resists for a moment, then comes away with a peeling sound, with duct tape stuck along the underside of it. We both pause at the contents. “Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.”

Natty reaches out and scoops up the bear. It’s been crudely fixed in some places, mostly along the seams of its arms. One of its eyes has been replaced with a newer, shinier button that gleams in the flickering electric lights. 

“It looks well-loved,” he says, petting the tattered fuzz and gently pushing in the stuffing. 

“It does. Wonder if Kellogg had a thing for teddies.”

He’s quiet for a moment. 

“Do you think Shaun left it behind?”

“I think the kid that Kellogg was with left it behind,” I correct. “Should I hold on to it?” 

He doesn’t answer for a long time, turning the bear over in his hands. I stand up and make our way back down the stairs while he thinks. Turn over a page on the desk to find scribbled orders for unloading a shipment of fresh molerat over to the Dugout. Vladim's handwriting. Another reveals one of Piper’s older news stories, except with all the o’s filled in like the answer sheet to a standardized test. Another is a little drawing of a boy standing under the sun with a big smile on his face. The drawers are empty, except for a hammer and a dull cooking knife.

“D’you think this was the only thing he had to play with?” Natty finally says.

I scratch the back of my head out of habit, tipping my hat forward. 

“Wasteland kids are inventive. That might’ve been his only toy, but I’m sure he found other ways to manage.” I tap at the table next to the drawing and Natty smiles, carefully taking the slip of paper and folding it into a neat square to tuck into his pocket. “Should I hold on to it?” I ask again. He nods, so I carefully take the stuffed animal and slide it into the pocket of my coat. 

“What are you thinking of?”

“I’m thinking we should get to Sanctuary.”

“I know,” Natty grimaces, “I get it. I meant besides that.”

“I’m... thinking there’s something strange with this room.”

He glances around the rusted metal walls haphazardly nailed together. 

“What about it?”

It takes me a moment to rustle up enough words to explain the data points and red string in my head. Maybe this would be easier with the bulletin board Old Nick had on his office wall, overloaded with blurry images and one crystal clear photo of Jenny. 

“When people live somewhere,” I start, “It only takes 5 days, on average, to mark their space. Now I’m not talking about putting up posters or painting the room. But where you put your bed, your appliances, your food cache, your garbage -- all these choices are a mark of a person.” I take a step towards the stairs and gesture upward, “There’s a bed against a wall, farthest from the door. Could be for safety, could be for space. Mattress has old stains. Scavenged? Maybe they took the bedsheets. Maybe they didn’t have bedsheets. Sleeping bag on the floor, small. Zipped up and pushed neatly to the side. No marks of handcuffs on the frame. Rope? Could be.” I walk back up the stairs and pull the bed frame. It skids easily. “No rope. Too easy to escape. Pots and pans, but no food.” Take the stairs down again. “No food. Beer bottles. Empty. Only two, not thrown away. Only two, huh?” The drawers still have the same tools in them. Push them closed a little too fast, but the desk doesn’t move. “Well look at that. This desk is bolted to the ground. For fun? Wiring? No wiring in the ceiling, at least. Not when it’s that thin. Then,” I take my lighter out of my breast pocket and spark the wheel. The flame wavers with the tendrils of wind that rattle their way through the faults in the walls. Too thin again. See the mats and walk over to the opposite wall. The flame steadies. “Fake wall, huh? Sounds solid. Something opens this.” Just then, I remember the kid in my arms. I look up at him and find he’s staring at me with wide, shining eyes. He startles when we lock eyes and frantically shakes his head.

“Sorry! Did I distract you? Should I look away?”

“...No. No, kid. It’s alright. I’m just not used to this, that’s all. Having a partner. Should we continue back at the Agency?” 

“No! I mean -- oh, am I heavy? I can get down. Lemme --” 

“Easy, Natty,” I say and hold him tighter so he can’t squirm his way to the ground. “I’m not the newest model, but I’m still a bot. Could probably carry you the rest of forever, if I needed.” 

He stares at me for a second before his entire face goes red, all the way up to the tips of his ears. When he tucks his head into the crook of my shoulder, hiding his face, I can see the back of his neck is pink.

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay, cool, cool.” 

And it’s not the processor that makes me nudges his head up with my bad hand.

“Hey, let me see your face.” It’s not Old Nick that says that. The back of my throat burns pleasantly at his shifting eyes and fluttering jaw between my fingers. I can’t help but chuckle. “That’s a cute face, kiddo.” I laugh again when he complains and burrows his way back into my shoulder.

“Stupid Nick,” he mumbles. “Gonna grow up to be 212lbs like my dad. See if you can carry me then.” 

“I got a five-ton lifting force, kid. Try your best.” 

“...Gonna be _six_ tons when I grow up, old man.”

“That so?”

“Are you gonna tell me what you were thinking?”

I shrug.

“Room’s too disjointed. Looks like Kellogg tried to clean it out before he left. Wanted to make it seem like this was it, maybe even belonged to someone else. But the chance of a person existing that--” I tick up the fingers of my right hand, “drinks moderately but doesn’t clean up after themselves, has tools but nothing to work on, leaves their bed on the far corner but bolts down their desk to the middle of the room -- is pretty slim. Higher chance that there’s another room he keeps all his gizmos in. I’ll admit, the papers are a nice touch.” 

“Does that mean that wall opens? Is there a button?”

“It wouldn’t be a button.” I squint my eyes and walk back to the desk. “There’s nothing bolting this down.”

“It didn’t move when you closed the drawer, though.” 

“Maybe--” I lift the desk and a thin wire draws up through a small hole in the floor, glued to the bottom of one of the legs. Immediately, there’s a groaning sound, and the fake wall bumps outward, right over the marks on the mats, and slides open. “Guess that answered my question.”

Lit overhead by one stark fluorescent bulb, a ragged armchair sits in the middle of the small room surrounded by all sorts of props that fit Kellogg’s tune a little better. 

“Oh my God, did he--” Natty bursts into a fit of laughter, a touch of hysteria in his voice.

“Something the matter?”

“No! No! I’m just--” he waves his hand and takes a deep breath. “Did he just sit here in this red armchair smoking? Under this flickering lamp?” He breaks into laughter again. Nova gives a soft keen of concern from the floor where she’s stretched out. “Oh _God_ , is that a cigar? Cigar in one hand, scotch in the other. Facing the door! _The aesthetic_! Get a reading lamp, Kellogg. It--” I rub between his heaving shoulder blades while he drools into my jacket, cackling. 

“What’s wrong with scotch?” I ask. 

“No, no, Nick it’s not just the scotch! Oh God, I might pee.” 

It takes a long time before he settles down, and I spend some of it picking through Kellogg’s ammunition, pocketing the .38s and 10mms for Natty. 

“Okay,” he says after a final giggle, “I’m gonna steal… everything in this room.” He hops down from my arm and starts stuffing cans of soup into his shirt. 

“...Don’t let me stop ya, kid,” I say when he shoves two Nuka Colas in my pocket. 


End file.
